one, like his own, was coated with ash at both ends. One end, however, was overlain with ugly smears that left little doubt about what it had last been used for.
'Mm,” Gideon said. He hadn't yet gotten himself to look directly at the body again, but he drew a tentative breath as they neared the chair. He smelled nothing but a general staleness. That and a faint residue of insecticide, barely perceptible. And no longer doing its job, judging from the flies.
'He hasn't been dead two days,” Gideon said.
'How do you know that?'
'If this body'd been sitting here two days, you'd know.” “Oh, the smell. Yeah, that's true.'
John was leaning over the corpse, peering attentively at the ruined head, his wide back blocking Gideon. “Blood's pretty well dried out, though,” he said. “And there are some maggots here. Doesn't that mean he's been dead a while?'
'Eggs, or larval stage?'
'How the hell do I know?” He looked more closely, getting his face nearer to Harlow's than Gideon would have cared to do. “Gray little guys. They don't have any legs. Does that tell you something?'
'Hard to say.'
John turned irritably. “Are you gonna come and look, or not?'
Gideon sighed. “Yes, I'm going to come and look.” But he moped over, taking his time about it.
'Jesus,” John said, “you are the most squeamish guy I know. How'd you ever get into this line of work?'
'I was just wondering the same thing. As I recall, you had something to do with it. And those are eggs,” he said, finally looking but not quite focusing—an ability he'd perfected only since getting into this line of work. “They haven't hatched yet.'
'Which means what, timewise?'
'John, my line is bones, not bugs. Aren't you going to call in the ME?'
'Yeah, or rather you are. I don't want to touch the phone in here, so I want you to go over to your place and call Honeyman. But first tell me what you think. About the bugs.'
'Well, I'm not sure how long these things take to hatch either. A day or so, I think. If that's right, he's been dead less than twenty-four hours.'
'Uh-huh.” Crouching, John pushed experimentally against the freely hanging arm with a finger. It swayed limply back and forth. “Maybe a lot less?” he suggested knowledgeably. “Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet.'
John, whose many strengths did not include forensics, never gave up trying. Unfortunately, he rarely got things altogether right.
'Urn, not exactly,” Gideon said. “I think it's already set in and gone.'
'In less than a day? How the hell could—'
'It's hot, John. In this kind of weather all the degenerative changes are speeded up. Besides, look at his hand.'
He gestured at Harlow's dangling hand, suffused with the bruiselike purple of well-advanced liver mortis, the slow after-death settling of the blood due to gravity. “That'd take eight or ten hours at least.'
John nodded and straightened up. Hands on his hips, he studied the body. “Boy, that is what you call a massive head wound. Three separate blows. Look at that; you can see the damn dents, one, two, three.'
Gideon stood a couple of feet away, studying the toes of his jogging shoes. “I guess I ought to go call Farrell.” “Right.” John began walking with him toward the door. “So he's been dead eight hours minimum, twenty-four hours max, is that what you said?'
'About,” Gideon said uneasily. “But go with what the ME says.'
'So he got killed somewhere between yesterday afternoon—Wednesday—and early this morning.'
'I guess.'
'So where was he from Tuesday morning to Wednesday? Nobody saw him all that time.'
'According to Callie, he was sick.'
'Is that right?” John strode into the kitchen, inserted a ballpoint pen into the handle of the refrigerator, and pulled it open. He did the same with the two cabinets. All were empty of food. There were no used plates or silverware in the sink or dish drainer, no wrappers in the lidless kitchen garbage can. There was no sign of anything edible in the cottage.
'So sick he didn't even come out to eat?” John said. “For over a day?'
Gideon shrugged. “Maybe he came out and nobody saw him.'
'Yeah, sure.'
'Well, what do you think?'
'I think we've got something funny going on here, Doc. I think if he was that sick he wouldn't be sitting up in a chair, dressed in his clothes, wearing his shoes.” He gestured with his head toward the open bedroom door. “I think his bed wouldn't be all made up.'
Gideon nodded. “You're right. That is odd.” John might misconstrue a forensic indicator here and there, but all the same he never failed to notice some things that got by Gideon.
John's eye was caught by something else. “Now what the hell is that?'
